Look Beyond What You See

Dmitri's Song

 Frustration stiffens my fingers, making the task I have set for myself infinitely more difficult as my fingers wander across the piano keys, trying to find something pleasing. My urgency, too, makes the frustration more poignant. I know Dmitri will be ending his lessons soon and then he will come to fetch me for luncheon, after which we will go back to my posing for his painting. His challenge for me to play for him has been burning in the back of my mind since he issued it, but even more so in these past few afternoons of standing in a river as he paints and not even being allowed a glimpse at the progress.

It's scary to me, how desperately I want to achieve his challenge, indeed, to achieve above and beyond his challenge. I want to impress him. I want to earn the right to see his paintings, all of them, not just this most intriguing one he's started so recently. But I mustn't think of that now. I must find a way to focus, focus, get inside the music, inside the piano, inside his mind....

A flash in my consciousness, and it suddenly seems to my overtaxed senses that I am already back in the river, the silvery-blue dress clinging to my skin, the leaves of the trees swirling overhead. Music flows from somewhere--from my fingertips?--and I am caught in the moment, again looking piercingly at Dmitri, waiting for his eyes to meet mine. They never do, which has been the most frustrating part of all of these trips to the river. He looks at me often over the top of his canvas but never meets my gaze. So I stand and wait, tension building as it gets harder to keep controlling the water, harder to hold the pose, harder to go so long without eye contact from him. This time the music makes it easier, however. In my mind's eye I break the pose, whirling on the surface of the water in an unearthly dance that matches the wild and unearthly notes that flow so naturally from the piano and from my soul. I wish he would join me.

At a tremulous pause in the music, my eyes meet Dmitri's over the top of his canvas. Flames spark in his at the contact and then that dark burning emotion rises in them, overpowering his gaze and my feelings. I can feel the magic pulsating within me to the rhythm of my heart, which has suddenly become the rhythm of the music. In a moment he is at the edge of the stream and I join him there, and we dance in a way that would have been considered nothing less than scandalous at the ball celebrating our engagement. The song that flows from me could be matched by no less than this wild piece of much leaping and twisting and touching, each touch lasting a little bit longer as the music becomes softer, slower, more sensually seductive, matching our eyes and (my desires).

Lips on my neck, too real to be part of this magnificent vision, jolt me back to the music room to feel hot hands on my waist and the warm presence behind me of my fiancé. I struggle to end the song naturally, pretending he has not disturbed me even though everything about this situation has disturbed me. A vision? Was it really all a dream? And a dream in broad daylight? How the sunlight from the windows hurts my eyes now, coming from that shady glen!

"Magnificent," Dmitri murmurs as the last notes still hang quivering and invisible in the air. "I had to end lessons early when I heard the song at long last float down the hall, after so much struggling. I knew it was.... I dared to hope it was...."

"For you," I finish for him in a tone that matches his. I cannot trust myself to say more. Where did that come from?

"Remind me never to challenge you in less leisurely pursuits. I fear you will be none so impressed with my art as I am with yours."

"I suppose we will determine that in due time. You are satisfied? You will let me see your paintings?" Breathing is still difficult. His hands still on my waist, his presence still too close. My magic trembles desirously within me and my heart flutters affectedly. I should like to lie down. I don't know how to handle this.